Colleen’s Blog

Many of you have read a lot of the work we've done on account management. But here's what's really critical about account management.

The other day, I got a call from one of my long-term coaching clients. He was excited because he had just blown away his sales numbers. He had a 7 million dollar quota and he closed 10 million, but he was also furious about being reprimanded for not putting in as many miles as the other field sales reps.

Sales leaders ask me all the time about how to make their sales team take accountability, or hold them accountable, for the set goals. I have to remind them that it's very hard for anyone to want to be accountable for someone else's goals.

I recently got back from a vacation in Japan and from that experience, I started to think about why I love going there in the first place. What draws me there? What sales lessons can we learn?

I've always been a fan of coaching sales reps on a given day. I love it when you have a consistent date and time where you coach your entire team one-on-one. However, managers often come up to me and say, "Colleen, it's exhausting." While it can be exhausting, it can also be exhilarating.

How many of you have been asked to do less work than you did last year? No one has ever been asked that. Even my clients in shrinking markets are asked to do more sales. This is what's expected from salespeople.

Today, I really want to focus on sales leaders for this strategy. Specifically, any sales leader who has a team who needs to set targets or an individual who sets their own targets such as a business owner or an individual contributor.

Recently, I've been working with a lot of financial selling professionals. This particular group was whining to me that they used to ask for referrals all the time, but they were terrible. They got referrals from people that they didn't want to do business with, who weren't a good fit, etc. At that point, they had just given up and thought that referrals don't work.

Most companies take a reactive approach to client retention and that is the wrong way to think about this issue.

Our team spends a lot of time working with our clients on compelling value propositions and client testimonials. There are two ways to use client testimonials that are often overlooked that I think are some of the most powerful uses of this type of content.